


Kitchen Disaster

by matrixrefugee



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-20 08:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17618873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: Sebastian tries training Grell. It's not as successful as planned





	Kitchen Disaster

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [Author's choice, author's choice, seeing red](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/12962.html?thread=742818#cmt742818). Mild Sebastian/Grell pre-slash and hints of Angela Durless/Grell. Also features Grell going over the top in usual form. Also! I wrote this while completely avoiding the use of pronouns for Grell. This is harder than it sounds, but I am quite pleased with the results.

Red. Madame Durless reveled in it, a redhead with near-scarlet locks who insisted that every stitch she wore had the same brilliant hue. Usually, it clashed with the coloration of most redheads, but on her, it somehow fit, with her vibrant, vivacious personality. Red. Everywhere red, her clothes and the decor of her townhouse and some of the rooms in her family mansion, done over in the same color. Everywhere that bright color, the color of life, the color of blood. Fitting, since she did serve as a surgeon, one of the first women out of London's Women's College of Medicine to qualify for the post.

Red. A color she even put on some of her servants, albeit in muted form. The red silk ribbon that tied back the mousy brown tresses of her butler, that incompetent, clumsy boob whom she called Grell Sutcliffe. Sebastian could not tell if he should call the youngster a butler or a housekeeper in man's livery: he could not tell and it did not matter to him, as he had no interest in the youngster. Even if the youngster showed a fascination for him.

Sebastian had set to work preparing the evening meal, tearing up lettuce for a salad: he heard someone coming and had reverted to the slow path which his master insisted that he take, if someone came to the kitchen, the better to hide his true nature in plain sight. The door opened and Grell's small, cringing form entered, shoulders stooped, gloved hands clasped in front, muddy green eyes blinking behind thick lenses.

"Mister Sebastian, if I might be of assistance?" Grell asked.

"Hmmm? no, Grell, I have the evening meal under control," Sebastian replied.

"Do you? Madame has requested that I come to assist you," Grell said, slipping out of the brown coat that added to the youngster's mousy appearance and looking for a place to hang it, settling on the back of a chair, rather than the hook on the back of the door. "She told me that I could learn much from you, that you could teach me to be a more competent servant." As Sebastian anticipated, the jacket slipped off. Grell emitted a perturbed noise and scooped it up, hanging up the garment for a second time. Again, the jacket slipped to the floor. "Oh heavens, I cannot seem to hang up my jacket without failure." Grell reached to one of the kitchen knives on the table. "What a wretch I am, making such a mess before I have even begun!" the wretch moaning, hand clamping down on the haft and raising the blade to throat level, blade point to shirt collar.

Sebastian reached out, grabbing the youngster by the queue of the other's hair and batting the blade in hand across the room with a clatter. "That won't be necessary," Sebastian replied, though in his heart of hearts -- metaphorically, since demons have no hearts, he would not mind seeing the wretch's existence end. "Now do keep your wits about you and... find a chair to sit on that you may watch me at work and learn that way."

The youngster looked up, green eyes streaming. "You would let me linger though I am of no use to you as an assistant?"

Sebastian could not help the red haze that filled the edges of his field of vision, the red that matched the ribbon in the smaller servant's hair and the blood that said servant would have shed. "I am the butler to your lady's kinsman," he replied. "What kind of butler would I be if I let her ladyship's servant come to harm at their own hand?"

Grell's pale face brightened, clasping hands in delight. "Oh, you are too kind, Mister Sebastian," the other burbled, small red hearts fairly blossoming overhead. "I shall sit quietly and watch, yet not make a peep."

"I would advise you to keep that promise by not chattering so much," Sebastian said, taking the smaller servant and parking their posterior on a wooden chair in the far corner, before stalking back to the table and setting to work on the salad.


End file.
